Palace Palace

Today I was supposed to go to Inkigayo to see U-kiss, however I wasn't able to buy a CD (very much my own fault) and was not able to go. To be able to go I would have to either have a fanclub card or a CD proving I was a fan of a group.

So, instead of enjoying the glory of Kpop, I went off with my friend Lila to enjoy the culture and history and architecture of Korea.




I went to Gyeongbokgung Palace. It was a lot of fun, the subway ride wasn't too bad. The weather was amazing, but the sun was burning me down even though I brought sunblock! You can see how pink I am. I had a great afternoon exploring. I also had fun on the train back practicing reading the signs in korean, and an old man came and helped me with my pronunciation. At first he thought I was lost and was trying to assure me I was on the right train. It was really nice, the people here are always so friendly and helpful.

Photo's of the Palace

The Wheels on the bus go round and round

This is a video about our trip to the farm. We planted Lettuce at the farm today. Though the video is more about what my class is like on the bus than on the actual field trip.

I had a lot of fun with them. I have grown attached and start to miss them, but at the same time I want to get away. They are so cute when they show you love, and even when they are being bad, they don't mean to be BAD they are just doing things and are having fun and don't realize its bad. Discipline is key! Control, organization, and a reward system. Reward good behavior, don't let bad behavior slide, make it look so good to be the good student. Thank god they love smiley faces!

Work work work

I've talked some about what I'm doing here, but not a lot about the actual work I'm doing. I work in a Hagwon, which is a private college. There are many different Hagwon's in Korea, and there are a lot of public schools, and whichever ones you go to are different.  I think my contract says I'm not supposed to talk too much about where I work, so I'll leave that out.

Levels I teach.
I teach ESL Kindergarden 6 years old Korean, 4 years old International age. I teach E1's that are 8 years old Korean, which is 6 years old International, and E2's which are 11 and 12 years old Korean, which is about 9 or 10 International.
I'm required to be to work by 9:40 in the morning, and classes for Kindergarden start at 10am. I teach math, colors, shapes, bodyparts, about plants, crafts... basically, its a true kindergarden. I even have gym class, which I hate more as a teacher than I did as a student. There are 5 periods in a day of classes, and 1 period of lunch. Lunch is about 50 min long. There is a 10 min break between the first 4 periods, and a 5 min break in the last 2 periods. That break isn't a full break for me because I have to take the kids to the bathroom and back to class, so its really about a 5 min break, but hey, every 40 min I get a 5 min break, not bad. Except the last break, which doesn't always exist cause its only 5 min long in the first place. Kindergarden ends at 2:20, and we get the kids dressed, and off to their busses. Its really busy, and I'm learning new ways of teaching as much as the kids are learning new things.

After Kindergarden I get a 20 min break before E1 starts at 2:40. I normally use this to setup the classroom and revue my notes and materials for the upcoming classes, because the next breaks are not very long. E1 as 2 periods with a 10 min break in between and ends at 4pm. I start the class by checking homework, then going over the date, and the weather, and asking how the kids are. This is more bookwork than Kindergarden is, however they are still young and beginners so we do a lot of active things as well. Last period we were reading a story about riding on different things like bikes, and spaceships, and scooters. So we had chair races acting out riding on this different objects, and the kids had a blast, and they all learned their words. My E1's are my favorite class because they like to participate a lot, and I can really see them learning the new words, and they don't scream like Kindy does.

Next is E2. Oh my E2's... They do not like to work. They have LOTS of bookwork that needs to be done, reading, and writing, and speeches, and it's a lot harder to make these fun because they have to be done. I'm having trouble thinking of games for them as well, however my other teachers have been helping me.  E2 is only MWF and it ends at 5:30

so thats not bad right? doesn't seem like a long time to be at work at all. However, that doesn't take in preparation time. I try to get my lesson plans done during my breaks and lunch time, however I also have to write the schedule for my classes the next month. Also, I have to prepare speech topics, and make telephone relays, and prep materials and tests. There is grading the tests and homework assignments, speeches to correct, and diaries to check and score. Then we have progress reports as well, and those take longer to do. Thankfully those are only every 2 months, not monthly. There can also be parent teacher conferences to fit in, and other meetings, and extra training.

Thankfully, I'm becoming a lot faster at completing my work since I first started. My first couple weeks I was doing about 50 hours of work with teaching and preparation and learning. Now I'm putting in about 40 hours of work, and sometimes I'm doing a little less. I also have the least amount of classes of the teachers at my school, everyone else has at least one more class, or and E3 class were they stay until 7:00. Of course they are paid more than me, and they didn't give me more classes because I am a new teacher. However, I'm thankful for that because I'm not sure I could handle that extra class!

Some of my favorite things about the teaching has been teaching holidays, and going on Field Trips. It really allows you to explore and teach without having to stick to a book, and come up with fun activities for the kids.

Now, every teacher I've talked with has said this is way more work than any Epik/Gepik teacher will have to do, and more than a lot of Hagwons, but they have also said that sometimes schools can treat them badly. At my school the staff is very supportive, and everything is handled well. People are friendly, and the students are good. Not great, they are still kids and I'll probably never think a mass of them are great, but there isn't any who need to be thrown out of a window.

Well, thats a bit about the job I'm doing now, so you know what its like here. I've only been here for a couple months now, I hear I have even more work to look forward to as Open house approaches, and Quiz Contest, Speech Contest, and when we start putting on plays... I think there is Children's Festival next month in Gym we have been training the kids so they know how to play the games. Which means I've been being pulled aside to learn how to play them! I've also learned like 40 different songs, and made up some of my own, for the kids.

Ok, this is all I'm writing about this for now. We shall see if I need to add more in the future. I'm not spellchecking or grammar checking, I'm just posting it from typing it, so don't bother to say anything about how I'm supposed to be teaching English. I make sure my assignments are correct before I teach them.

Cherry Blossom festival!

So I went out to the Cherry Blossom Festival in Yeouido Park in Seoul South Korea, it was great!

I had a really fun time, the cherry blossoms were very pretty. There was a sea of people, like when you go to a state fair. There were booths and some small rides for kids, and food vendors all over, and concerts going on. Korean traditional plays too, though sadly I didn't get to see one, I could hear one happening. We arrived at about 12:30pm, and walked for hours, with a couple of breaks to sit down.

I sadly lost my sunglasses during this adventure. The sun was very bright, it was a beautiful day out.
Rebecca, Lila, and I all were walking around, and we met up with another friend Alyssa. After walking, we got Chinese food, which was expensive, but soooo good. I got Kung Pou Chicken. It was really pretty watching the cherry blossoms change throughout the day, with the different lighting.

This guys was making candy to the music, moving with the music. It was a lot of fun to watch. It was at this point I lost my sunglasses. 

here is the path we walked!

here is the full album of pictures I took today
FULL ALBUM CLICK HERE

Field trips

We went to a farm to plant potatoes. It was interesting, and fun for the kids. We also ended up picking up frog eggs and a frog for the kids to see develop.

Field trip Farm

We went on an Easter Egg hunt. The kids got to find 2 eggs each and some candies, and we made baskets.
Field Trip Easter Egg Hunt

LMFAO

LMFAO!

the Venue was held at Olympic Park, in a different stadium than I was used to going to. I was in a real panic trying to find it. I called Rebecca in a panic, then desperatly followed some other forigeners figureing they might be heading the right way. I was right! So I made it there, got my tickets, and was all ready to go in. Normally, sitting can go sit, standing has to wait in line until they let them in. Well, this time it wasn't the case. Standing had to wait, and sitting had to wait until after standing was in. Which made for a really long, cold wait, and made me irritated. It was stupid, sitting had reserved seats, why couldn't we go sit?

During this wait sitting had made a huge line, which I refused to get in. I sat down next to it. I had the same seat no matter what, I didn't need to be in any damn line. A guy sat next to me. He was an American GI who had come down for the concert, and was from Virginia. Never got his name. I tried to steal his Reese's Peanut butter cups. No luck. Then two cute Korean boys who spoke great English came over to talk to us as they waited too. They knew the dancers and were going to go to the after party, and were fun to talk to. Then I noticed I could go inside were it was warm, and left them. I didn't get their names, or contact info, or anything. Just scurried off. Later, I was like "why?!? Marti you are stupid."

They didn't start letting standing in until 7:15pm, and then sitting finally got to start sitting at about 7:45pm. The show was supposed to start at 8pm. yeah... it started late. They didn't get everyone in and it started until like 8:30ish. This made me really mad, because this either meant the show was going to run longer than I originally though, which means I might have missed my train and not been able to get home before the public transportation ended, or they might cut it short, which means not as much of a show. Neither are fun options.

However, all of me being irritated stopped as soon as the concert started. Red Fu came out to the song Rock the Beat II. He announced that Sky Blue was injured from Wiggling it, he had such a large package it was hard to wiggle it. Even without Sky Blue it was still a great concert. I don't remember the exact order of songs, however I'll list the songs I do remember playing.

Rock the Beat II: Intro song
Sorry for Party Rocking: 2nd song, and they audience sang the Sorry for Party Rocking part.
La La La
I Don't Wanna Be
Get Crazy
Put that A$$ to work: this one was especially fun. the audience did the dance move. It was like Hands up to the left, hands down to the left, hands up to the right, hands down to the right, swivel your hips down pop your booty. It was a lot of fun to dance to and sing.
Yes: the audience sang the Yes.
I Shake, I Move
Reminds Me of You
One Day
I am Not a Whore: the audience sang the I am Not a Whore part
I'm in Miami bitch: the audience sand Bitch. I was blushing so much from saying bitch that may times, and so were the Korean girls next to me.
Shots: we sang shots. Red fu said if you didn't have a drink put up your middle finger. So for every shot a middle finger from the entire audience was thrust into the air. Red Fu sprayed the standing auidence with Corona's. The audience was screaming shots, it was great.
Party rock: SHUFFLING!!!!! so much shuffling.
Champagne Showers: Red Fu and the party rock crew/quest crew sprayed standing with many bottles of Champagne.
The stage went dark like it was going to end, then went bright and out they came... in their little tight tight shorts. Sexy and You Know it Started, and they ripped of their shorts at the right parts. All of the crew battling it out in speedos and wiggling it.
Red Fu talked about how much he liked Korea, it was his first time here, and he loved the light sticks and blinking lights everyone had brought.

That was the end and I rushed to go grab my train, and managed to catch the last bus home. If you paid there was also an afterparty, but we all know I'm not an after party kind of person. I had a great night!

infinite concert

The Infinite concert was at Olympic Stadium. My friend Rebecca bought the tickets from Interpark and I paid her back, it was 88,000 won. We had sitting, not standing, which is great for me. I don't think I'll ever be able to handle standing seats. Looks like death might happen down there. However we had a really good view, there really isn't a horrible place in sitting, you get a good view no matter what... well I guess if you had a horrible person in front of you it could be not as much fun. However, thats the crowd not the venue.

I don't really know Infinite, however their concert was fun. The music was good, and the dancing was fun. They were good at interacting with the crowd, taking peoples camera's and taking pictures, they tossed things into the audience, and wore funny ears and hats the audience tossed at them. Their dance moves are very fun as well.
My favorite part was when they had the solo songs. I don't know there names, so I can't say who did what. One of the sang Sexy Back, which was really fun to sing along with and watch. I liked his butt wiggle he did.
The other songs I didn't know, however the dances were fun.

A boy came out singing a romantic song that was kinda like being on a date, and tossed a bouquet in the audience.... after that blood bath ended, I think the bouquet was demolished. His final line was asking who wanted a date with him. I thought I'd never hear again after the enthusiastic response that was given by the audience in response.
One did were he was coming down the runway, showing his abs every once in a while, then eventually riped off his muscle shirt. then he went down and fucked the floor then flipped over and fucked the air. Every girl there flipped out... and I think there was only like 4 boys in the audience, so yeah... it got loud right then.

The next boy out was in a dress, singing a sexy song... doing sexy dress moves. Highlight of this was because he didn't really know how to move in a dress, he would do moves that would flip up his skirt, and we all got to see his boxers.

The next boy, to calm down raging fangirls, did a cutie song. It sounded all fluffy, and was good.

I don't remember the rest of them. During breaks while the boys were getting ready for their acts, they were playing a video the boys had made that was a story of them all in a battle of the bands against each other. It was cute, and pretty easy to understand even though I don't understand Korean.

They gave their goodbyes, and 2 of them couldn't stop crying. It took forever and almost put me to sleep... though again, I had no idea what they were saying. I pretty much just saw the crying. After that it was the "end of the show" but really they were sneaking into position for the encore. It was a lot of fun, they dropped all the balloons from the ceiling, and girls were mauling each other for them.

Weekend plans

So it has been a full month in Korea now. Teaching is going well, I'm understanding classes, and the kids tests all went ok. It being a full month means a paycheck! That caused some difficulties that I'll talk more about in another post later. However, now that I have money, its time to spend it. The best way to do that is with friends!

so here are the plans.... having already started.

has happened so far

Friday: go to Yongsum and eat at T.G.I.F. Have a good meal and a mudslide with  my friends. Then, at 11:15pm, go see Titanic in 4d. Which was long, but good. It was fun with the chairs moving, wind blowing, water spraying. After that all the trains were down so we negotiated with a taxi to take us to Dongdaemon to go to the Night Market in Seoul. Which was... not as fun as we hoped. The night market part at least. It was a bunch of tents setup with people selling things I didn't care about. However, there was also people with street food. I was still stuffed from dinner, so didn't partake, but they enjoyed it. Then we went into a department store, up to the 6thish floor and rested at a coffee place until 5am, right before the trains started running again. On the train, we watched two grumpy possibly drunk old men falling asleep, bumping into each other, waking up and grumbling at each other, the falling asleep, and repeating this. We stumbled from the station to our bus having watched the sun rise, and then from the bus home, almost passing out. Once home I started my laundry and hoped onto the computer. Its almost 24 hours since I woke up at this point and I need to get up in a couple more hours!.

plans for the rest of the weekend.

Sat. night LMFAO concert at 8pm
Sun. Go to inkygayo. After getting back have Chicken/cheese quasadias with friends. pass out.

then its back to work!

The Doctor

the TLDR version:
I went to the Doctor. He spoke English, it cost less than 20.00 without insurance. However I have a cold so there isn't much they can do.

the long version:

Going to the Doctor in Korea wasn't scary. Of course, I practically forced my co-worker to help me... Both she and I have been sick almost since the day we arrived in Korea. She went to the doctor right away, and found out she had Bronchitis. I was all "well, I don't have insurance yet, it will be expensive, and I'm pretty sure its just a cold and they can't do anything. Little did I know how much work it is just to get some cough drops here, and since it wasn't going away, I decided to go to the doctor as well. So my wonderful co-worker showed me how to get to the doctor she used.

The office is close to were I live. There wasn't an appointment, it was a walk in first come first serve basis. It was farily easy to get in, I just had to hand over my passport. They called me in and the doctor spoke English. I should say he spoke medical English. However, we understood each other, and he said it was a cold. However he also prescribed some medicine to help me because it was sever. I think it was a decongestant, however I am unsure. He asked if I was allergic to any medications, the prescribed away, not telling me what I was getting or what it does. I was then ushered out and told to pay.

Back home, this lovely short visit without insurance would have been over 100.00 easy. here? so expensive without insurance? Nope, it was only $13.00... Then, I went downstairs to the pharmacy right below the doctors office for my 5 days worth of cold medicine. They told me that if my hands shake I should remove the blue pill. They had individually wrapped each dose of my medicine, and there was 5 pills in a dose. Again, I had no idea what these pills did, other than I now knew the blue one could perhaps cause my hands to shake.
I was sick, so I took my meds and felt better. After I was out of meds, it rained, and I got the flu, and caught yet another cold... or maybe never actually lost my cold. Unsure. However, I'm still sick. I have health insurance now, but.. I just don't see the point in going to the doctor. I don't like taking medications when I don't know what they are for.